One of my colleagues, Dr Adeel Ahsan, has a major project called “Affordable AI Chips with Intrinsic Common Sense and Morality“, aiming to develop software (and later hardware) that uses concepts based on neocortical pyramidal neurons (particularly as described by Prof Bill Phillips in his book “The Co-operative Neuron“.
The concept is to use context directly in neural network based artificial intelligence: rather than simply using all the input data in the same way, it is divided into driving input and contextual input, modelled on the inputs to the two sites of neural integration on neocortical pyramidal neurons. These are basal input (“driving”) and apical input (“contextual”). Using this considerably more sophisticated neuron provides real advantages, although it is clearly more complex to implement.
The project proposes that contextual input can provide “common sense” input, reducing the likelihood of the network being completely wrong. The work was originally used to develop hearing aids that used audio (direct) and visual input (context). But the idea is much more generally applicable, and this project, funded by ARIA aims to develop these ideas into real applications, as well as developing (neuromorphic) hardware to support these applications.
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